What Kind Of Art Sells Well In Your Experience?

The kind of art that sells well - the art that you market that someone else will pay for. I've given up on what people will purchase - nudity (male and female), beach scenes, landscapes, birds, not a lot of sunrises/sunsets or even flowers. Digital abstracts hardly sell at all. Prints of paintings (if we are talking about what sells here). You just have to go look at the recently sold ( http://fineartamerica.com/recentprintsales.html )- but - what others sell - ain't necessarily what you will be able to sell - it is ALL about marketing yourself AND your art.

Much appreciated! :-)

I have noticed in general that lots of COLOR is very popular. I think many people choose artwork for their homes based on the colors.

As Aaron said, color is good,,,but as I have seen here and learned ..it's all about preference.

http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/all/all?sort=bestsellers

there is nothing in particular that sells here. everything does. it comes down to style, technique, color, and how well you can advertise. buyers may come in on a mission - find a dozen toilets. i need to find 3 dozen images that have an eye in the picture. swamps, coke, things that roll. it really very much varies.

the best thing to do is - don't chase the white rabbit. make your own thing in your own style but make it high quality

you'll want to break up your gallery into subjects and not just call it artwork. you'll want a Representative image as well.

make sure your images are printable - a few are not due to noise, add more keywords also btw.

anyway those are the things you need to sell here. if i told you peppers sold well, would you paint a pack of peppers? i could tell you what i sell well, but that would alert my competition. and it still wouldn't help you.


---Mike Savad

There is a buyer for everything if it is of good quality. Having strong subject matter is helpful to be found in the search as it is keyword driven. Good marketing trumps that. What sells well is not always going to be what you sell a lot of. If 100,000 artists are doing what is popular few sell well. I find it better to do more niche subjects. Less competition. If you have a strong style that can be a niche also.

You have to get your reproduction down pat. As is now you have some cropping mistakes. Some seem a bit soft. Even lighting, precise cropping and edge to edge sharpness are all factors in selling as well as having your work be accepted for printing if you do sell.

Everything you have painted is highly marketable

Martin: "There is a buyer for everything if it is of good quality". I have to disagree. there are no buyers for some styles and artworks.

Hi Ben, I have decided that there is no one thing that sells well...I followed the recently sold for awhile and could make no sense of it...it was all over the place. But if you look at who sells consistently you will see work of the highest caliber and a lot of it....and you will see that they do much to market their work.

Everything and anything is likely to sell. The key is getting it seen. You have to market your work way beyond FAA and bring shoppers to you own art. The number of uploads will also make a difference. You need as many as possible.

No.
For example I have more views in shorter time than many people here (so it means I advertise ) They sell, I donīt. Case closed.

In my opinion, anything can sell of you find the right buyer. For anyone who doesn't believe this let me tell you: I once sold a painting for $200 and it was nothing but a black painted slash painted on top of a white canvas. It literally took me 10 seconds to do.

The key to selling is finding the right buyer. You can have a million views but if they are a million views to the wrong clientele you'll still have a difficult time selling.

To use an analogy: If you're a Country singer, you're going to have a hard time selling an album to someone who only likes Death Metal.

So find your audience. That's the key.

--Roz Barron Abellera

I think attitude has a lot to do with selling any product. If you don't think you can sell your product or anyone else's, you probably won't. You have to keep a positive attitude to be able to chug alone and keep doing what you have to do. It is hard to keep plugging along when you have little on no confidence in what you are doing.

Roz is correct. You have to find your audience. You have to find something that works for you and then keep doing more of it until it stops working. Then you look for something else.

You also have to present you and your work in the most positive form that is most likely to turn lookers into buyers.

Mood. A particular mood is what a buyer is looking to purchase.

That might be bright, bold & cheerful...

Or Somber and monochromatic .

People want a piece to speak of , & entertain their emotions.

I agree that there is no "one" subject matter or style that sells best. But I have noticed by watching the recently sold page that a lot of people buy art depicting famous musicians and art depicting vintage vehicles. Too bad I don't specialize in either of those things. lol

The kind of art sells well is the one which true to yourself.

@martin it depends on the type of view you get. if its a view from a random person that clicked the link they probably aren't a buyer. but if you focus a certain kind of image on a certain kind of person they may buy it. it really depends how you advertise... and see Roz's advice.

if you want to sell cookies, set up outside of a gym or a weight watchers club
if you your a lawyer, set up next to a police station
you'll sell more ice cream on a hot sunny day, then selling steaming hot brownies and pretzals. reverse that for winter.

if your making things at random without a focus, it will be nearly impossible to get sales. if you try to make organic looking things that looked like the ocean, you could focus your efforts o marine biologists. if it looked more cellular, then doctors and other people likely to have money.


---Mike Savad

i have been trying to find the righ t buyers for my work for nearly a year. No point in this, there are non.

you have to figure out what type of people might want your type of work, and design work for them. and it may not be a shape, it might be a color. try a series that uses pinks and pastels. many of those are high contrast, or strong color. look for as many interior decorators as you can. and you might do better on houzz to help advertise yourself. i never got into it, but i can see waiting rooms and such with your things on it.

---Mike Savad

Most anything someone else does?

In my limited experience, it seems that some of my images taken in the city appeal to city people and perhaps because of the more concentrated population, more interest and sales have been attributed to it. I'm assuming the city dwellers also identify with certain iconic references as well. For instance, Baltimore is well known for row homes with marble front steps, Federal Hill, Inner Harbor, etc. One city dweller emailed me expressing his interest except he much preferred the images in grayscale. I have not really gone out of my way to market my images aside from search tags applied here on FAA.

I'm a bit unusual here also because I have some 3D stereos available. Although I've limited my 3D uploads to FAA for a number of reasons, I've still gotten several sales including my very first sale. I attribute this again to search tags and the 3D stereo community "out there".

There are I'm sure, various subjects that attract certain groups and if the subject happens to be less common than say, Flowers and Kittens, I'm probably going to have more "hits" in my direction.

In my experience anything will sell but #1 it has to be seen by the buyers, so lots of marketing ; #2 if it's for prints it has to be high quality file that will print well I sell mostly originals so I don't really think about what would sell as a print - there's alot of money to be made if you can find the magic style or subject - from cottages with flowers to abstracts - there's so much to experiment with , just find something that inspires you.

"Most anything someone else does?"

That makes no difference at all.

The Lone Cypress on 17 Mile Drive in Monterey, California is one of the most photographed and painted scenes in the world. It is also one of the best selling images in the world.



People keep telling everyone that they have to have the best work, only the best will sell, if your work is not the best it will not sell.

That is pure garbage!!!

I sell that image all the time on several different webpages including on FAA. And guess what? There are at least a dozen maybe two dozen "better" photographs then mine by better photographers, but yet I still sell mine.

It is not anywhere near as much about the art as it is about the marketing and having the confidence that YOUR stuff WILL sell. It doesn't matter what anyone else in here thinks of your work. It only matters what YOU and the prospective buyer thinks.

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING IN SELLING!

I have said it before and will say it again, I can take the worst artwork on FAA and sell it better then the worst salesman here can sell the best artwork.

You want to sell, learn how. It is as simple as that. It starts with believing in yourself and your work. If you don't, why should anyone else!?

Selling For Dummies: http://www.amazon.com/Selling-For-Dummies-Tom-Hopkins/dp/0470930667/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409614229&sr=8-1&keywords=selling+for+dummies

Marketing For Dummies: http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-For-Dummies-Alexander-Hiam/dp/047050210X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1409614470&sr=8-2&keywords=marketing+for+dummies

You can also go to your local college, even a Junior College, and see if they offer Selling or Marketing. I taught a salesman ship modal at our local JR College for several years. Take both classes.

Make sure you take the class from a salesman that actually worked at and was successful at selling something. Automobiles, Insurance... something that is extremely competitive. Don't take a class for some one that had the only hot-dog stand at Dodger Stadium. You want the guy that made a lot of money selling ice-cubes to Eskimos. THAT guy will teach you how to sell.

.I agree with Floyd, you gotta have a salesman's attitude. The buyer is unpredictable, but the seller has an obligation to be consistent.

deleted, sorry for hijacking thread

Back from another weekend selling face to face, all I have to say is:

For me, it's still the only way to go.

Where the artist, the buyer and the Art all meet together.

So what kind of art sells best?

Art that is experienced first hand